Hacking put to good use...

It irks me when I hear the term hacker in mostly negative ways, then a hacker does something like this and it remains me of the original sense of hacking. On the original days of computers, hackers came together to try to come with new ways to use what they had.

Most hackers continue to do this, sometimes doing things that could be at least be called dubious just to prove it can be done. The Xbox One gamepad is one example of a hacker coming with an use that some gamers wanted, but that Microsoft wasn't giving to them.

For me, that's an area where open source can be of help to hackers and hackers can give to open source. In many ways, if you allow hackers to adapt software and hardware openly to other uses and to let them contribute their hacks back to the community is one of the best ways to make open source projects better faster. And by having those hacks occurring openly, the risk of having any malicious side of it coming out of it to a minimum.

As with anything where people are involved, there will be some that will try to come with ways to hack in ways that are not beneficial. Yet, I don't think that those will be the norm. The nature of open source will help to keep it that way, since most of the people working on those hacks can contribute it to keep those hacks from bad use.

Hack in itself it's neutral. It's the people that do that hacking, who actually use it for good or for bad. Instead of making hacking an evil act, lets make it attractive to those who will make use of it for the good of community that will make use of the hack they make.

Pushing hackers, and the skills the make use of, aside as unwanted people we are set to lose of a lot of things that could benefit us enormously. We need them to work on the open, so that their work can benefit as much people as possible. Only by doing this, can we have a more rapid progress on as many fields as possible.

Hacking is a skill set that can go both ways, but when allow it to grow in an open space that pushes it to be used for the good of us all it can do wonders for all.

My mind wondering after watching Cosmos...

As I was watching Cosmos last night, somehow I realized how similar the scientific and FLOSS communities are in many respects.

Both communities do they strive on individuals working together, in an open way that promotes sharing information and testing ideas before they become accepted as facts. People test each others ideas, and put them to work when they prove their value.

Even though most of the time they work in parallel to each other, they do have points where each other interact. Where one provides with tools, or ideas, that allows the other work toward their objectives a lot more efficiently.

Though FLOSS owes its existence to the science, since without the discoveries made by the scientific communities the FLOSS community wouldn't have much to work on, FLOSS does pay back that debt by giving back tool that allow science to move forward. Both help each other grow and move forward, it could be said that both communities live in a symbiotic relationship.

What's more impressive, at least for me, is that it's far more common that I ever imagine to find scientist that work on FLOSS project in order to advance science. Some because they needed to create the tools they needed for their research, or because they knew how to code and found a FLOSS project they wanted to contribute to.

Other thing, is that you don't have to be a scientist to contribute to the advancement of science. If you know how to code, you can join any FLOSS project you like that helps develop the tools that scientists need for their research.

Both communities are about people together, the scientific community to find out how the cosmos works and the FLOSS community around finding the best solution for a task. Even if the end of each community is different, the core values of their members are the same.

No need to the perfect distro...

Going through the comments of a post on Google + today, I came to realize that the GNU/Linux community doesn't actually needs a perfect distro.

There is a need that available distros work the best they can for the purpose they where made. Each and every distro will have it's inherent strengths and weaknesses, and there is nothing bad or wrong with it. The main thing, is that they do what their users need from them.

The fact that GNU/Linux has the flexibility to be used to make the vast array of distros, from general purpose to specific use, speaks volumes of how good it is for developers and users alike. It gives both the ability to create distros that carter specific needs, tastes and work flows all built on a common base.

In some sense, the perfect distro depends on the specific needs of each user. What's the intended use for the distro will dictate what it needs to work, and how it should do things. It's a mistake to try to have one distro to do all, specially when we can have as many as they are needed. What it's a strength in one distro, can be a weakness on another.

If anything, we need to make the underlying technologies of GNU/Linux stronger so that all distros can work on top of them. In some respects, we need to strengthen the standards on which distros work so that users can trust that their distro of choice will work.

At the core of GNU/Linux should always be the openness that has allowed us to have the variety of distros that conform to the needs of us the users. There will be disagreements, but if they can made to work to our benefit, and make our communities stronger.

A laptop and a smartphone, my perfect combo...

The more I think about it, the more I realize that tablets aren't for me. If I aren't at home, where using a laptop is way more convenient for me, I'm more likely to be at my favorite coffee shop or bar where using my smartphone to check in or send a quick text is way more practical.

At home, I'm either surfing the web, editing my blogs, chatting or on a video call. For me, it's a lot more practical to use my laptop, which has the added bonus that I can take to my favorite coffee shop or my best friend house to either do some work or just geek out. I simply can't see myself using a tablet to do any of this, I just find it to be rather uncomfortable and they still can't do the kind of multitasking I do.

When I go out, I prefer to take a smartphone with me. It allows me to quickly check in on Foursquare, take a quick photo or note, and to listen to my music on the go. Not only that, it also helps me to keep me in touch with texts, Whatsapp or a quick call. Not only that, I can keep share whatever I want to on Facebook, Google + or Twitter with ease and without loosing a hearth beat.

I can keep track of what I have to do using my agenda and the calendar app at my smartphone, and quite easily I must say. And since I always have one of the at hand, it's really hard for me to be reminded of what I've to do.

It's not like I've anything personal against tablets, I just don't think that they are for everyone or that we all need to have one despite all the hype around them. They are just one way people can access mobile computing, and should be seen as the option they are.

More than ever, I come to believe that there will be several ways to have access to mobile computing. How we access it will depend on our lifestyles, and how integrated we want it to be.

For better, or worse, mobile computing is here to stay and will keep evolving in ways we may not phantom today. I want to see it evolve in a way that it enhances the human experience, and it helps us create a better society.

The headaches of proprietary software...

At work, we use SAP to manage our most of our key aspects of our daily operations. It has made evident the weaknesses of using proprietary software, and how frustrating they can be.

Two of weaknesses are the most evident, and the ones that impact us the most. The first one, is the fact that when a fix is needed on the inner working of the software there is no way it can be done within the organization itself. We need to go the people who provide us with the licences so that they fix the problem. This means that it takes longer to solve the problem, and at times there have been some misunderstandings since the one who made the fix wasn't the one who received the information about it on first place.

In our case, we have people who are more than capable to fix any of the problems we have been facing. Yet, they have their hands tied because they can't do it because they don't have the access needed to make it so.

The other problem, is that we are in a position where the vendor has us locked to use their services. While we could move to another service provider, it isn't that practical because we just own the client side of the software. It's not the best position to be in, since the amount of data we produce is copious and we depend on the the software to be able to do business.

This causes a lack of flexibility that is problematic, since problems that could be solve sooner if the they could be worked in house simply can't be worked on the spot. The worst part is that, some of those problems haven't been completely solve and have been dragging simply because we depend on the them to give us the solution.

With an open source software, our IT department could be the one that handles most of those problems. While we could hire support to an outside company, access to the core parts by our IT department could be our first option to solve most of our problems.

In many ways, the more I use proprietary software the more I love open source software.